


Meme Ficlet: Landscape

by greywash



Series: Meme Ficlets (Spring 2012... and onward) [25]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Creepy, Gen, Post Reichenbach, Romance!!, by which I mean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-28
Updated: 2012-10-28
Packaged: 2017-11-17 04:34:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/547666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greywash/pseuds/greywash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Meme ficlet, archived off Tumblr; unbeta'ed and un-Britpicked.</em>
</p>
<p><strong>Anonymous requested</strong>: 2 and 14 receive invitations to an exhibition of 9's work. What do they see?</p>
<p>
  <strong>2. Anthea</strong>
  <br/><strong>9. Sherlock</strong>
  <br/><strong>14. Sarah</strong>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meme Ficlet: Landscape

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: unbeta'ed, un-Britpicked, I know very little about art... you know, the usual.

The invitation is letterpressed: dark grey on white cardstock, and Sarah turns it over and over and over again, but it doesn't start saying anything different.

_You are especially invited:_   
_27 October 2012, 9:00 pm_   
_107 Beak Street ∙ Soho, London W1F 9SU ∙ United Kingdom_

No name, no explanation, no return address. Sarah Googles the address and turns up a small art gallery, which doesn't really help; she scrolls through their "Coming Soon", but there's nothing scheduled for that date. It's... well, it's creepy. That's all there is to it. She doesn't know any artists personally, doesn't have much interest in art in general, doesn't know anyone who'd be likely to go to any significant trouble or expense to play a practical joke. She has no idea why anyone would bother to target her specifically, either. She ought to just bin the invitation and be done with it, probably.

She doesn't.

She does bring Adam along, though. Says it's an old friend from uni's exhibit, but that he—bit of a gamble, that, but her instincts say "he"—was always a bit odd, so she needs Adam along to fake 'flu if her artist friend turns out to have turned into a full-fledged raging lunatic sometime in the past twenty years. Adam laughs and kisses her and then asks if he ought to wear a tie. She takes a gamble on that and says yes; she's always rather fond of Adam in a tie.

They turn up at half nine, and it certainly looks like a legitimate exhibition: lots of older people in black cashmere and younger student types dressed with occasionally entertaining creativity; muted conversation; starkly matted charcoal sketches on the walls.

"Bit weird though, aren't they?" Adam asks, in a low voice.

"Yes," Sarah says slowly, but she's really not sure. They're all rather abstract, and... uncomfortably familiar, in ways she can't entirely identify, like they're pictures of places she's been but seen from wholly unfamiliar angles. They are interesting, though. There's one series of four in particular that she keeps circling back to: it looks like black-and-white snapshots of some mountainous alien landscape, distorted, and it makes her feel terribly sad, and a little bit sick, and very nearly afraid, without at all knowing why. She wishes she could figure out who the artist is, but the gallery owner has been deflecting that question all night, from women in far more expensive shoes than hers.

"Rather impressive, aren't they?" asks a voice behind her shoulder, and Sarah turns to look at a tall, sleepy-eyed brunette, hands folded loosely in front of herself, a BlackBerry still tucked in the right. She's not paying attention to it, though. Her head is tilted.

Sarah looks back at the wall. "Yes," she says. "But—I'm afraid I don't know much about art. I don't even know what I'm looking at."

"Portrait number seventeen," the woman says musingly.

"What?" Sarah asks, and the woman points to the corner of the second of the four: an absolutely minuscule tag, printed in shining black, just barely readable against the matte black frame:  _Portrait No. 17_.

Sarah looks back at the sketch, and beside her, the woman says, "I'm not much of an aficionado myself. I'm never certain how to interpret non-representational art."

Sarah can feel her breath, moving in her throat. She is remembering things, and the way they fit together. She examines the series in front of her, top to bottom, and then turns: the four behind her, the two to the right, another three on the left. She should have seen it sooner, probably. She's a doctor. She ought to know how to see the whole in the parts.

"It's not non-representational," she says, very quietly, "they're close-ups," and then feels her face heat up as the woman turns towards her. Sarah clears her throat, and points at the sloping line of a mountain in the top left corner of the sketch at the the top.

"Clavicle," she explains, and then down to the bottom right. "Ah—underarm, I think."

The woman is quiet for a minute. "That's very interesting," she says finally. "A scar?"

Sarah swallows, and nods. "Think so," she says. She can feel her face getting hotter. She—she wouldn't swear to it, of course. Her visual memory simply isn't that good.

The woman hums to herself, then drops the BlackBerry into her bag.

"My apologies," she says. "But I think I'd better be going."

Sarah nods, and watches the woman walk away, glossy hair falling around her shoulders, then looks back at the sketches. Her hand is curling around the outside pocket of her bag, almost against her will. After a minute, she makes up her mind and pulls out her mobile, then takes one snapshot, two, three, four. Then she goes to find Adam.

"Hey, listen," she says, quiet. "I have to—I've just had a call, my sister's in a spot of trouble—do you mind calling it a night? I'd better go check in on her."

"Oh, is she all right?" he asks, brown eyes turning down in very nearly comical concern.

"Oh, yes, just—boyfriend trouble, the usual," Sarah says, and he snorts. It has the benefit of being entirely plausible, and if she gives Lizzie a heads-up, she knows Lizzie will back her up. "Call you tomorrow?"

"Sure," he says, and she touches his elbow again and then heads over to the gallery owner.

"I know the artist is trying to remain anonymous," Sarah says, very quietly. "But... can you tell me, at least—is it current work?" She clears her throat. "I mean. Since the spring?"

The gallery owner nods. "Oh, yes, quite current," he says. "He was still finishing one of them when my assistant went to pick them up." He laughs, so Sarah laughs too.

"And... he's English?"

"Swiss, actually," the owner says, smiling. "But he said he spends quite a lot of time in London."

"Well," Sarah says. "Give him my compliments, if you would?"

"Of course," the owner says, and after a moment of awkward, rather heart-clenching discomfort, Sarah tugs her handbag open and pulls out a card.

"If you could... just." She swallows. "Only if he wants to contact me. But I'd love the opportunity to thank him in person."

"I'll pass it along," the owner says.

"Thank you," Sarah says, and heads outside to catch a cab—but doesn't get a chance. There's a black car idling outside, door open, and the brunette with the BlackBerry is standing beside it, waiting.

"Sarah Sawyer?" the woman says, smiling.

"Yes?" Sarah says. She steps back; not even ten steps back into the gallery, if she needs to.

"I beg your pardon, if I'd known I would've introduced myself sooner," the woman says, and holds out her hand. "Anthea Smith. I work for Mycroft Holmes. I think we ought to have a chat, just us, before we talk to anyone else, don't you?"


End file.
